What is Stack Overflow?
Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers.
Since launching in 2008, Stack Overflow has become the primary destination for support in the developer community. Along with the proliferation of the tech industry, there has been an increasing demand for developers, many of whom have chosen to fast-track their career path with online self-help in lieu of traditional computer science degrees. This is evident in Stack Overflow's Growth
How Does it Work?
Stack Overflow is a community of users who post questions and answers spanning various programming topics. Ultimately, both groups are vetted through a communal system of qualification: users accumulate reputation and posts are voted up or down. Hover over the below components to learn more:
Questions
Get answers to practical, detailed questions. Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.
Tags
Tags make it easy to find interesting questions. All questions are tagged with their subject areas. Each can have up to 5 tags, since a question might be related to several subjects.
Answers
Good answers are voted up and rise to the top. The best answers show up first so that they are always easy to find.
Reputation
Your reputation score goes up when others vote up your questions, answers and edits. Reputation is a carefully calculated rough measurement of how your own answers, questions, edits and documentation are received by the community. Note that “down votes” decrease one’s reputation. This maintains a system of checks & balances on those who would indiscrimately down-vote other posts without basis
Who Are These Users
When are Users Accessing Stack Overflow?
Hack #1: Knowing The Perfect Time To Ask a Question
Likelihood of Receiving an Answer Based on Question's Age
Hack #2: Knowing Exactly How Long To Wait
What is Being Asked & Answered?
Hack #3: Knowing When To Give Up on Waiting
Where is the Most Activity?
Hack #4: Maximize Success By Targeting Popular Topics/Tags & Asking Better Quality Questions
